Marijuana Expected to be Rescheduled Federally by the Fall

Recently the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), for the first time ever, gave approval to a marijuana-based medicine. The company behind the medicine now says he expects the government to reschedule cannabis within 90 days.

“We expect to make Epidiolex available to U.S. patients this fall, following rescheduling which is expected to occur within 90 days of FDA approval,” said GW Pharmarceuticals’ CEO Justin Grover in a recent earnings call. “We have been building commercial inventory in recent months and are in a position to ship product into the U.S. supply chain, once rescheduling is complete.”

In June, Epidiolex became the first marijuana-derived medicine to ever be approved by the FDA. According to Grover, roughly 1,200 people in other countries are currently receiving Epidiolex, mostly for Lennox-Gastraut and Dravet Syndromes.

If rescheduling really does occur within 90 days of the FDA’s approval of Epidiolex, the change should happen by the end of September. The most likely scenario is that marijuana will be shifted to schedule 2, which means it’s still highly regulated but does have some medical value. Another possibility is that marijuana-derived CBD is rescheduled rather than marijuana as a whole, which would be a positive development, but less so.